The BC shale I am not familiar with to be honest. The shale I saw was from the US, and it had a ridiculous amount of wax in it. The problem was
getting rid of the wax without burning off the petroleum, or gumming up the pumps and other machinery. It is possible to do it, just not feasible.

I agree with your post, but the thing is india and russia are way ahead of this game. Alternative energy. possibly free and clean energy. I also think
that the reason that it aint been used before now is also the fault lines. You empty an underground resevoir of oil and you will have a nice hole to
fall into?

See when this oil/carbon is burned and the exhaust warms the atmosphere and this melts the ice caps and the sea rises ........ do you think these
holes wud take up the extra water and save us all from drowning ?

although im unsure how i feel about this. Cheaper oil would be nicer,, but im sure it will have a bad effect on the environment. and that oil will
certainly be very valuable in the future. Also, maybe in the future, the US will have a monopoly on advanced energy genertaion systems, and we will
export this fuel!

More recent estimates put the Bakken shale at 4 billion recoverable barrels. Quite a difference from 500 billion.... The Bakken is also being
tapped already. Obviously it could be producing more, but there are companies there and producing already...

The other reserve in the Rocky Mountains is actually close to 2 Trillion barrels with 800 billion recoverable. Again, nothing to scoff at, but its
not going to supply our oil for 2000 years. It's also at least 20 years from being tapped though since it is so far beneath the surface.

The bigger conspiracy than environmentalists blocking oil reserves in the US, is the Myth of Fossil Fuels.... Oil is renewable and not in limited
supply...

Putting a population through crippling taxation through fuel, while sitting on probably one of the worlds largest reserves, is not logical, even
economically.

They envision they have valuable reserves, allowing them to dictate terms to the rest of the world for them to be setting prices and being an economic
superpower for centuries to come?

Nope, i don't think so.

They think they can set whatever price for oil they want, and the world will come begging bowl in hand?

Nope again.

The world wouldn't do it.

We are moving along with alternative energy technologies at such a pace, oil as an energy source will more than likely be phased out quite soon, and
something cleaner, much more efficient and cheap or close to free will be what the world will be using for energy, not oil.

Then they'll kick themselves when nobody wants to buy it, even at cost wouldn't they?

I think they know this is the case, so better to screw every last penny out of the public now using the cover of 'expensive, dwindling foreign oil,
than to introduce a vastly cheaper domestic oil for $16 a barrel, and make nothing on it when they know that (despite efforts to suppress it)
alternative engineering and development could replace their dreams of a 'future goldmine' and economic security, with simply, 'lakes of worthless
oily sludge, overnight', they'd practically have to give away to shift it for plastics and other areas.

Originally posted by slipknotrules2009
Becuase when ever one else runs out the U.S. will control the world with whats left and why use ours when we can suck the world dry and know we have
hundreds of years of oil for our reserves.

seems pretty smart to me, but it could also lead to war.

The rest of the world will probably move onto alternate energy sources such as hydrogen from the water, solar, you name it. While the US keeps
polluting the planet with fossil fuels.

Instead of amassing the oil and playing the greedy money hungering/power control games the US should be focusing instead on leading the world onto
achieving oil Independence status.

This item about untapped oil reserves in the Bakken formation (which lies within portions of North Dakota, South Dakota, and Montana) appears to have
been taken from a tout sheet intended to sell subscriptions to an investment newsletter. It is vaguely true in the sense that geologists have
estimated there is a good deal of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in that area, and as the price of crude oil increases and the technology
for extracting resources from formations like Bakken improves, that area becomes more and more economically viable as a source of oil for the U.S.
However, the estimate of over 500 billion barrels of oil to be recovered from the Bakken formation is an overly optimistic one based on incomplete,
outdated information.

A November 2006 report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) stated that:
With new horizontal drilling and completion technology taken into account, the technically recoverable resource base for the entire Bakken Formation
is potentially much larger. A draft study by the late organic geochemist Leigh Price provides estimates ranging from 271 to 503 billion barrels (mean
of 413 billion) of potential resources in place. The study represents Dr. Price's work as it stood at the time of his death in August 2000. It was
conducted while he was working for the USGS, but it did not receive a complete scientific peer review by the USGS and was not published as a USGS
product. A new assessment of the entire basin, due out in about a year, will provide an updated USGS estimate of the technically recoverable oil
resources in the Bakken Formation.
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) released its assessment of undiscovered oil resources in the Bakken formation in April 2008, and although it
reported a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that could be recovered from that area compared to its 1995 estimate, the 2008 USGS estimate was
still far short of the 503 billion barrel volume cited above:
North Dakota and Montana have an estimated 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of undiscovered, technically recoverable oil in an area known as the Bakken
Formation.

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's
1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil.

New geologic models applied to the Bakken Formation, advances in drilling and production technologies, and recent oil discoveries have resulted in
these substantially larger technically recoverable oil volumes. About 105 million barrels of oil were produced from the Bakken Formation by the end of
2007.

The USGS estimate of 3.0 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil has a mean value of 3.65 billion barrels. Scientists conducted detailed
studies in stratigraphy and structural geology and the modeling of petroleum geochemistry. They also combined their findings with historical
exploration and production analyses to determine the undiscovered, technically recoverable oil estimates.
Certainly 3.65 billion barrels of recoverable oil is nothing to sneeze at, but a little perspective is in order. The U.S. currently imports an average
of about 10 million barrels of oil per day (for a total of about 3.65 billion barrels of oil per year), so even if all the estimated undiscovered oil
in the Bakken formation were extracted today, it would only be enough to wean the U.S. off of crude oil imports for one year. That's still a good
thing, but it's not nearly "enough crude to fully fuel the American economy for 41 years straight" as claimed above.

Even if you achieve "oil independence" or "energy independence"....which you would need to seriously drastically retool your entire infrastructure
for.... It still would not remove the strategic advantage of having oil in the ground.

Oh, and I don't see your country significantly retooling its entire infrastructure anytime soon.

Why aren't we tapping into this untouched gold mine yet to take some stress off of the tax payers pockets?

(from the OP)...

The answer is simple. It's CHEAPER to buy it elsewhere, than to build the refineries, etc. needed to tap these resources. The majority of the "most
recent" US refineries were built in the late 70's. It would take quite a lot of time and money to get to a point where production was steady from
these sources, and that's money the oil companies would rather be raking in profits from...

I do wish we'd do something about it though. If for no other reasons, than to:
1) Get started, so it's there when really needed.
2) Get it going before an alternative power source/s make the asset obsolete
3) Drive down the price of foreign oil, which would then drive down inflation, and serve to jump start the global economy.
4) Create lots of jobs
5) Preserve Alaskan wilderness...the ND oil is in a frickin' wasteland, just about....
6) Preserve coastlines that would otherwise be at risk of offshore drilling.

2. How much as a percentage can we extract before critical damage is done to the earth?

3. At what rate does this get produced?

4. How long does it take to reach these large depths, how economical and technically feasible is this?

5. How long are we until this can be reproduced in a lab with minimal resources?

I don't doubt that eventually we'll be off oil. What I doubt is that we'll not reach a major oil crisis before these new techniques are available
for mass production. As the energy crisis sets in, modern civilization as we know it will cease to function. From this, our ability to further our
tech, and make these options viable will be less and less as the days roll on. It's a race between technological progress and energy resources. I
think it'll most likely get way worse, before it gets better. Most experts agree. We've got anywhere from a few good years, to a few good decades
most likely. Personally, I think less than a decade before the jig is up, and serious collapses start becoming a reality.

Oh, and of course the other thing to consider is climate change anyways. We're already at 387ppm of carbon in the atmosphere. Depending on the
expert, we're either passed the tipping point, about to pass it, or will within a generation or so. The tipping point being an estimated 2 degrees C
rise in temperature.

Eventually (hopefully real soon) we'll be forced to go off of carbon all together. It seems the world is just waiting for the next genius to come
along and stumble on a new way of providing our energy needs. The current alternatives don't even come close to filling the gap. We'll use all of
them, and should, but it doesn't come close to what we're currently using with oil.

I think it's highly possible that the US is sucking the supply from foreign countries to demolish them in the future. If we use all their oil now,
they will have no profits in the future. The middle east will then have no economy or money and will fall. Then the US will strive off their reserves
and sell little amounts at extreme costs.

Another big thing to look at is the fact that we have the technology to create vehicles that run on alternative means to oil. Strangely, nothing is
getting released except for hybrids and electric cars that can only travel small distances and still rely on oil/fuel. Do they hush companies that
invent other means of transportation so we remain dependent on oil?

This is an interesting story that I had forwarded to my email account about the a huge amount of natural crude oil discovered in the Western United
States in 2005. Why aren't we tapping into this untouched gold mine yet to take some stress off of the tax payers pockets?... Well That's exactly
why I'm posting this.

My theory on this is that the US will use up the oil resources around the world, saving the US oil for last. At that point, we can charge out the
wazoo for it; thus, returning the US the economic super power status.

Never use your own resources when you can get them somewhere else. Reserves are crucial for our longevity...and some day the US will literally "make
the world go around"...what will the middle east be selling? Sand?

I'm used to this philosophy... In fact, it makes complete sense. However, by the time our neighbors run low on oil we'll simply be using it for
manufacturing. Oil will essentially be a non-factor, so all we've done in that region is fuel their lifestyles and wage conflict with wars. Take a
look at what has been released as current technology then imagine a decade out.

Try to debate with me, and I'll cite a whole slew of energy sources. Enough to provide a substantial amount of redundancy as well.

Environmental groups like the Sierra club are funded by the oil companies to keep competitors out of the market.

According to Dr. Steven Greer the so called "energy mafia" has warehouses full of suppressed energy inventions that could have freed us from oil
decades ago. (at the moment I cant find the video where he said he briefed a senator on this) www.theorionproject.org...

oops forgot a couple of quotes whale were on the subject:

"Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people." -Henry Kissinger 1970

"The real menace of our republic is this invisible government which like a giant octopus sprawls its slimy length over city, state and nation.
....At the head of this octopus are the Rockefeller Standard Oil interests and a small group of powerful banking houses generally referred to as
international bankers. The little coterie of powerful international bankers virtually run the United States government for their own selfish
purposes. They practically control both political parties." New York City Mayor John F. Hylan, 1922

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